The new record "may be among the most objectionable albums ever to receive mainstream release, but that does not make it a bad album," Alona Wartofsky assured us in the Washington Post. "The new album from Eminem is absolutely outrageous. And I mean that in the best possible sense," cheered Neil McCormick in London's Daily Telegraph.

'Cuz if I ever stuck it to any singer in showbiz
It'd be Jennifer Lopez and Puffy you know this!
I'm sorry Puff, but I don't give a fuck if this chick was my own mother
I still fuck her with no rubber and cum inside her and have a son and a new brother at the same time
-- "I'm Back"

Time Out New York thought this incestuous, quasi-rape fantasy about Jennifer Lopez was "sidesplitting." The Times of London agreed it was "extremely funny." CDNow insisted, "The man is fearless." Why? Because he has the courage to insult, among others, pop stars Puff Daddy, Will Smith, Britney Spears and 'N Sync. Eminem also has things to say about quadriplegic Christopher Reeve. Talk about picking fights you can't possibly lose.

In a recent cover profile of Eminem for the Los Angeles Times Sunday Calendar magazine, the paper's longtime music critic, Robert Hilburn, came this close to comparing Eminem with Elvis Presley, a tenuous stretch that won the writer an insightful reply from a reader in Studio City, Calif.: "Let's see ... self-described white trash who raps about mindless violence, misogyny, murder, child abuse -- one who proclaims 'anything is possible as long as you don't back down' and then makes whatever lyrical changes are required to conform to retailers' guidelines of acceptability. Gentlemen, please."

A few days later, in his review of "Marshall Mathers," Hilburn, like so many before him, apologized for the rapper in advance: "Eminem is simply exercising his creative impulses -- putting on disc all the forbidden thoughts and scandalous scenarios that accompany adolescence and just watching the fallout." In other words, Eminem's the John Rocker of hip-pop (calling the slurs like he sees 'em), and music journalists are his hometown apologists who can see no wrong in their star.

Elsewhere, Newsweek explained away the "Marshall Mathers" hate by noting with approval, "He picks on himself almost as much as he does the people on his enemies list ... By flipping his razor-sharp lyrics on himself, Eminem subverts the smirking superiority that plagues mainstream rap, a wily underdog move that lets him get away with more than he could otherwise." That's been a popular defense, most often invoked right after '99's occasionally jocular "Slim Shady" album. But the truth is that "Marshall Mathers" is far darker and more disturbed than most critics are willing to admit. Which explains why Newsweek didn't include any new subversive lyrics of Eminem picking on himself. They don't exist.

Don't you get it bitch, no one can hear you?
Now shut the fuck up and get what's comin' to you
You were supposed to love me [sounds of Kim choking]
NOW BLEED! BITCH BLEED!
BLEED! BITCH BLEED! BLEED!
-- "Kim," a song about Eminem's wife

When you get done parsing the critics' language and logic about how it's all just satire, or cartoons, or Eminem's alter ego talking, the bottom line is that they've given Eminem a pass. (Ask the Michigan bartender if that was Eminem's alter ego brandishing a pistol over the weekend.) Regardless of what he raps about, because he's so dynamic and funny on the mike (which he can be) and his beats are so tight (which they are), his lyrics are irrelevant. Makes you wonder what it would take for music journalists to sit up and take offense. A song or two about lynching bothersome blacks, or gassing a few Jews? Even then, it'd probably be a close call.

One thing is for sure, ever since the release of "The Slim Shady LP" last year, critics have been working overtime trying to soften his gruesome lyrics. In analogy after analogy reviewers have tried to convince readers (and perhaps themselves) that Eminem's odious tales are simply the latest in the grand tradition of shocking youthful rebellion as championed by the Rolling Stones (Sacramento Bee), Freddy Krueger (Times of London), a Quentin Tarantino film (Los Angeles Times), the wood-chipper scene from "Fargo" (Boston Herald), shock jocks (Washington Post), Rodney Dangerfield (Rolling Stone, Baltimore Sun), the gallows humor of Alice Cooper (Los Angeles Times), "the wink-and-nod allure of horror film violence" (Detroit Free Press), comedian Robert Schimmel (Washington Post), "Scream" and its sequels (Times of London), Redd Foxx and Richard Pryor (MTV's Kurt Loder), "bombastic wrestling telecasts" (Entertainment Weekly), "South Park," Jerry Springer, Howard Stern, "Cops" (SonicNet), a Robert Johnson blues classic (Kansas City Star) and the Beatles' "Run for Your Life" (Kansas City Star).

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